VA
Detroit
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Detroit
@VA Yes! YO___ doesn't have to be anything weird. Got the music at 59:44 with no lookups and the cute snail telling me that I was 4:50 slower than average. Thanks snail. This concludes today's episode. It's a WEIRDFLEXBUTOK.
@ST precisely because of the world situation? This one’s low(er)-risk. Funner. More tractable.
@Mean Old Lady, ouch! Here’s to the pain relieving effects of cussing.
19:50, 39:50 faster than my Thursday average. Definitely matched wavelengths with the constructor. Fun puzzle. Figured out the theme with W/TALKIE and NEW/T. Always enjoy a good Simpsons clue. Bouvier is such a fun last name for Marge.
27:44, 27:11 faster than my average. Good week this for me. Enjoyed “Heartfelt exchanges?”. Thought it was ODES first. Was so sure it was INFLUENCER that I deleted CURRY, ALAS, and ALRIGHT to make it fit. Eventually couldn’t work that, put everything back and figured out the answer. Nice one. INFLUENCER I’m sure has had a debut, anyone confirm? For the emotions clue first went through HONEST and thought HALP sounded like an ailment. Then switched to BASEST to get meaningless BASP and SEAR. Finally got the solve with RAWEST. Nice! Really enjoy these passages of having to figure it out more than getting it outright. I feel like I’m hearing the words from the protagonist from anime who says something like “If you want to enjoy martial arts then it’s better to not become stronger than you are now”. The otakus will understand. AREYOUGOOD is every Mom’s daily morning check-in line with their first semester college kid, I think. Fun puzzle. Kudos!
50:57, 3:59 faster than average. Nice clean fill. Gave up secrets a little at a time. Bottom right was the last to fall.
@Ed I have been in the past, not with this one. A good night’s rest seems to work well for me. Sometimes my brain wavelengths seem to switch just enough to match the creator and things flow. There is all of Saturday left (give or take a few hours)? Worth a shot.
@Mike I have been avoiding this but I now officially acknowledge your talent. May it serve as a force for good and to bring pun and joy to the world. Cheers!
Whoo! 47:53, 12:49 faster than average. Let’s go! Fun one, had PARATHA in place of CHAPATI for a while. Used to spelling it with an extra P, but glad it’s finally gone beyond the staple (eat out wise and xword wise) ROTI or NAAN. Needlessly complicated the clue to BAREESSENTIALS by imagining a “?” at the end of it and going off the deep end imagining SUNDIALS and whatnot that can only be done without/within. “Baloo’s song” could be a good clue for BARENECESSITIES. The middle initial in OCTAVIAEBUTLER seemed suspicious but worked out. Arthur C Clarke comes to mind. As an SF reader I can’t believe I haven’t read a single one of Ms.Butler’s works. Time to rectify this miss.
34:51, 19:30 faster than average. Joint solve, so expected it. Nice layered solve for me - came together in about 5 passes. I like going through each across top to bottom, each down left to right, fill as many as I get then repeat each time filling in a few more. Piano, piano, as they say in Italian. Gen-Z clue was new. The colonial homes were on hills, I thought at first before correcting it. Was surprised when I got the Altoids clue straight away, have I seen an ad for it? Dunno. Overall fun. When I went to post my comments I saw a mere 16 comments!! Many confused thoughts later realized it was still Thursday night. A first for me. Whew! That was disorienting.
@Caro I guess if you’re mapping the Deep then -ography seems better. If you’re studying the ecology of the Deep then perhaps it’s -ology. When I talk in such nuances my child says I sound like a chatbot. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Bot-speak shouldn’t be nuanced! The world’s-a-changin’!
@Francis I thought it came from the Marine Corps but AI overview says "a slogan associated with the U.S. Armed Forces, particularly the Navy Seabees and Army Corps of Engineers, originating from the World War II era". Been reading too much mil SF
@Jacqui J I think being told that one is BEHINDTHETIMES is the point where one can (proudly) consider oneself as graduating into the "wise-old" stage of life. It's a perfectly WEIRDFLEXBUTOK.
2:05:29! A full 1:04:34 slower than my average! Plus all the lookups on the NE corner and an autocheck to fix NOMIGUSTA. I was so proud of piecing together the answer to this clue from tiny fragments of my very limited Spanish heard vocabulary. Close, but no cigar. But I persevered when I only had the SW finished. 30 mins later I persevered when I had the SE finished. Then 30 mins later I guessed LIVELARGE and at 2:00:00 said SCREWTHAT and looked up RECTO, ARI, and AMISH. The words just wouldn’t come today. A slog. I got many that I didn’t know - OSMIC, MENOMOSSO, STAVE, ABA. Maybe in another hour I could have come up with RECTO and guessed ARI and cross-guessed AMISH. Yeah, dunno.
37:37, 23:07 faster than average. The colorful shawls and the names were the last Naticks but just need a few educated guesses to suss it out. The bottom left was the hardest, Initial Challenge clue couldn’t have had such an obvious answer now, could it. Of course, it could and it does. CHOSE and GOFISH were such good fits that I found it hard to give them up. But I did and finally completed. Enjoyed a good Saturday themeless.
@Nancy J., I’ve had TEXMEX but haven’t recognizably encountered CALMEX yet. Took a while for me to move off from TEX to CAL.
This creator’s puzzles have always been tough for me. No flow, if there is such a thing for a themeless. Gave up on the bottom-right and looked things up. I felt it had to be Lamar and subway but ended up looking up stuff to get to the end. I guess I’m at a solving stage where this gives no satisfaction. Yesterday it flowed, today it clogged. That plumbing is as yet unreliable.
@Cat Lady Margaret My eyes are tearing up (not emotionally) even as I imagine this. 🤧
23:19, 31:10 faster than my Thursday average. One puzzle where I actually used the theme to get the answers. Always a good feeling that. Feels like I didn’t leave anything on the table. Full enjoyment. Max satisfaction. Win-win. And other such.
Whoa! PR Thursday. 18:44 a whopping 35:40 faster than my average! Smooth and clean. Paused at the bottom right corner then drove to work. Finished it during lunch break. I guess no rebus fun this week.
30:36, 23:51 faster than my Friday average. Slow start but sped up midway. The He or Xe misdirect was my favorite.
Didn’t know any of the trivia but made slow progress and got a solid hour’s worth of engagement for my Saturday morning. Fun debut! Do ultra-fast solvers feel like Saitama does in OPM? Constantly chasing stronger and stronger monsters to get the same challenge but never quite getting the satisfaction?
1:04:45, 9:49 slower than my average. BUT for some reason this did not feel difficult and at every point felt within reach! That’s pure constructor skill, that is. Or just plain dumb luck. Anyhooo…. . That’s a proper Chidi argument for fans of the show. Had HELDNERVE for a while before I fixed it. Crafty, crafty. Had a chuckle at Java, my kind of misdirect. I was thinking stains on the carpet long before I imagined dog hair. ALONETIME was such a tease! Nice. Finally fixed ABC to get the music. This one was a great themeless. Great fill and wonderful cluing.
42:52, 17:58 faster than average. Went pretty much clockwise starting top left. The Ship-to-ship was my favorite clue. The Athens clue led me down a rabbit hole on which ancient Green cities still exist. Enjoyed the fill.
38:42, 16:43 better than average. I was sure it was OMELETTE (spelt in a way) before fixing it to ROULETTE. Cross-guessed HINNY and LACERTA. GIDEON and SHOFARS just seemed right from some corner of the memory even though I had no idea who and what they were. I think I encountered the latter in a clue in a recent archive solve. What a mind it takes to discover the theme word relationships and puns. My puns tend to be so rough and forced in comparison. Wonderful skill and requires such an immersion into the world of words. Amazing!
@Sam In a sort of ChatGPT vs Claude in the ring punch fest. Makes total sense
@TholosTB Isn’t it great to consciously go through the “10,000 hours…” journey. I can feel my neurons making new connections each day. It’s probably pruning other ones though. I can’t locate my car key fob.
1:04:45, 26:46 faster than average. Reasonable comp for yesterday’s doozy. Finished the grid with a “/“ in each of the rebus squares with no music. The removed the slash with still no music. Fly-specked to find LECLER. Felt lazy, looked it up and got the music. Japan has some fancy flavored ones - Ume sake was a favorite. They even have a banana flavored one. The NW corner gave some trouble, was stuck on IMITATES and SNUCKIN for a bit before fixing that.
@ad absurdum, The 99% agree in spirit but their flesh weakens when they get on the plane.
@ad absurdum, after reading your first line I was half expecting a reference to 81D. Mercifully, not!
@Jane Wheelaghan Zombie horde seems common enough but then maybe I’m playing too many z-games. I had MAY I first, but changed it.
42:58, 48:04 faster than average. Also, 7 Sundays in a row! This kind of streak is ok too! Felt like an extended Tuesday. Enough crossers to avoid naticks. The mating clue was my favorite, rutting season notwithstanding. I had SNIDER for quite a while even though I knew it was spelt SCHNEIDER. I let the crosses gently move me to a different Rob. It’s important to be kind to oneself, that way.
43:45, 16:57 faster than average. 25:00 for 3/4th of the puzzle and nearly the same for the top-right. Being 1A sometimes got me out of chores (guilty) and made for some cute pictures. Absolutely miss it.
@Shane Yes, exactly. Knights with earrings and their derring-do
@Kal Ha! I want to see that in a future puzzle. UP AND is so much more colorful.
I so wanted Bad singer to be MJ. I thought maybe 2D was MALALA, didn’t quite fit. 47D wasn’t B___Y nor was 29D HEAVYM____ . WIND-UPTOY took so long to come but it was perfect when it eventually did. Enjoyed this one.
Love, love, love has GOT to be AMORE, right? Right???!!! Nope. Added 10 mins to the solve time cos’ of this. First lady clue was cute. Didn’t get what the theme meant till I read the column but I cottoned on to the pattern early enough and it helped with the solve. Nice Thursday.
51:39, 10 faster than average. Had OLAF filled in first but deleted it convinced that the down entry was LANAE. Finally gave in and looked up OLAF, fixed MONAE and completed it. Just the right amount of crunch for a Saturday and loved the long phrases.
Southwest corner got me! Couldn’t get past BEER! Must have been the Friday night. Dang. I guess a 14 yo would go for a cold-brewed-coffee? Too young even for that, I think. Keep you wired all night. I love cold brews at coffee houses. Taste sweeter in my imagination.
Still solving at 50+ mins and naticked on the SW corner. Being stubborn and not looking up yet. Can the speed limit object be the MUON? The YO___ doesn't give me any good alternatives. Sports trivia foils me again. Even managed to figure out that it wasn't FRILLS. To be continued...
@Grant Darkness everywhere I see. Sleep I shall!
I took a screen shot of the mini with the clues on the side and pasted it into an LLM and asked it to solve it. It did. Even asked me if I wanted it typed into the grid, I said yes and it gave me a grid. It even gave me its reasoning 9A: Busy buzzers ... and letters found at the start of every clue in this puzzle Let’s analyze the clues: 1A: Barker 4A: **(B)**ase 6A: Bouncy 8A: Budget 9A: Busy 1D: Baked 2D: Big 3D: **"B"**eauty 5D: Balm 7D: Bourbon All clues start with B. Answer: (Busy buzzers) I thought of repeating this with the regular xword. Didn't have the heart to find out the answer. Some things are better left not known.
@Phil. I first encountered it in an Archie comic. Reggie (or possibly Archie): “who sez?”. Moose (possibly about Midge): “I sez!”
@Kevin D Me too, tucked in, but fighting off them viruses (or is that virii).
@Times Rita More hearteningly you still call her friend. 👍
1:31:53, about a minute slower than average. Theme was fun, the Caribbean clue pointed me in the right direction. The top middle was a proper battle of attrition. To the right I had EETP….. and to the left ..IGHT. First I filled SWEET, which led me to ROWE but AWL led me to LOWE, which gave me WESLERNS and LEX (Bruce Wayne reference), which finally fixed itself to the correct answers. Was stuck for a while with FAIR until I forced myself to re-read the clue. Fun puzzle. Some puzzles the solving time seems to be some asymptotic function of the number of clues remaining. The TTNF (Time To Next Fill) increases till the last fill takes as much time as the previous 10.
Tough, nearly an hour and spent half of it on the bottom-left. Some real clever cluing. But always felt accessible in ways that the older archive ones don’t. I think it’s the editing team that is to thank for it.